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CAERDROIA – A STRANGE LOOP has a good post on the Fedayeen Saddam’s transformation from what Kenneth Pollack called a ” goon squad ” into a passable group of ersatz guerrillas. Caerdroia has also graciously linked to Zenpundit earning my thanks and an eventual place of honor here once I get around to setting up my links.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Please examine the relative behavior of the British and the Americans and the Iraqis. Any suggestion of moral equivalence between the coalition and the Iraqis on this occasion, I totally reject.”

Australian Prime Minister John Howard

CHEMICAL WEAPONS SUSPECTED:

From the Boston Globe, courtesy of Drudge.

Also yesterday, US military officials reported that two Iraqi rockets, seized by American troops Tuesday southeast of Najaf, were suspected of containing chemical munitions. It was unlear whether they had been fired or where they were found. The rockets were undergoing testing in a military lab, said Lieutenant Christopher Pike, an intelligence officer with the Third Infantry Division.

In Washington, a spokesman said the Pentagon could offer no immediate comment on the suspected chemical munitions.

SLATE’S TAKE ON ” SHOCK AND AWE ” go here . I think we need to be careful about second guessing the effectiveness because the media is missing much of the integrated picture available to the generals that we observers will not hear about until after the conflict is resolved, sometimes until years later. Saddam has been reduced to the Mayor of Baghdad but allowing Iraqi TV to function has kept potential fence-sitting units loyal to him the way the Waffen SS kept fighting so long as Hitler was alive in his Fuhrerbunker ( Hitler even made a radio broadcast a few days prior to his death to condemn Goering ). There will be no more easy surrenders unless Saddam’s loyalists believe him to be dead or finished. As a historian I’m curious to know if we backed away from our own plan out of fear that ” Shock and Awe ” would be too devastating on the region politically if implemented as designed because the apparent image of the American invasion of Iraq presented is one of piecemeal rather than simultaneous action.